“If (Abiy) gets hurt or killed, it’s not just the federal government that will collapse, the army will as well,” said an International IDEA researcher.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has gone to the battlefront in the country’s ongoing war against forces from the northern Tigray region, the government announced Wednesday. Abiy,45, is a former soldier and the winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. He announced his intention to be on the front lines Monday, saying martyrdom could be needed. A government spokesman told the Associated Press Abiy arrived at the front Tuesday, though did not specify the exact location. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the former ruling party of Ethiopia that Abiy designated a terrorist group, has been advancing to Addis Ababa in recent weeks, looking to strengthen their negotiating power or to get Abiy to step down. Tens of thousands have died in the war so far. Spokesman Legesse Tulu said Wednesday that the deputy prime minister, Demeke Mekonnen, is handling the government’s day-to-day operations while Abiy is absent. “The situation is extremely dangerous,” Adem Abebe, a researcher with the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, said to the AP. “If (Abiy) gets hurt or killed, it’s not just the federal government that will collapse, the army will as well.” Awol Allo nominated Abiy for the Nobel Prize when he made peace with neighboring Eritrea. Allo told the AP, while he didn’t rule out the possibility that Abiy was directing the war from a safer location, a move to the front fits with Abiy’s sense that he was destined to lead.
